The Osun State Government is taking the Federal Government to the Supreme Court, alleging the seizure of monthly allocations meant for its local government councils.
This legal action comes amidst a brewing crisis over the control of these councils between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
Reports indicate that Osun State’s local government allocations for February, March, and April 2025 have been withheld, with the May allocation yet to be determined.
Filed on April 23, 2025, and marked SC/CV/379/2025, the suit lists the Attorney General of Osun State as the plaintiff and the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) as the sole defendant.
The state government is seeking a Supreme Court order to compel the Federal Government to release the seized funds and to prevent any further withholding or suspension of allocations to its local government councils.
In an originating summons filed on April 24, 2025, Osun State is asking the Supreme Court to determine several key questions:
- Whether, based on the Nigerian Constitution and previous Supreme Court judgments, the Federal Government can withhold or suspend monthly allocations to local government councils without justification, especially when the state has democratically elected councils in place.
- Whether the Federal Government’s actions, by withholding these allocations, threaten the existence and governance of democratically elected local government councils in Osun State, thereby contravening the Constitution.
- Whether the Federal Government can single out Osun State and withhold its local government allocations without lawful justification or a valid court order, while other states continue to receive theirs.
The state government is requesting the following declarations from the apex court:
- A declaration that the Federal Government has no right to withhold or seize local government allocations without justification, given the presence of democratically elected councils.
- A declaration that the Federal Government’s actions in withholding the March 2025 allocations are unconstitutional, unlawful, and beyond its powers.
- A declaration that the seizure of funds threatens the existence of the democratically elected local government councils in Osun State.
- A declaration that since the Federal Government has not yet implemented direct payment of allocations to local governments (as per a recent Supreme Court judgment involving Abia State), Osun State cannot be singled out for non-payment while other states receive their allocations through their state joint local government accounts.
Furthermore, Osun State is seeking:
- An order directing the Federal Government to immediately release the unlawfully withheld March 2025 allocations to its state joint local government accounts.
- An order directing the Federal Government to continue paying allocations to Osun State’s local government councils through the state’s joint local government accounts until necessary logistics for direct payment are in place.
In an affidavit of extreme urgency deposed by the Commissioner for Finance, Ogungbile Adeola Olusola, the state government argued that the continuous seizure of these funds would paralyze the education and health sectors and cripple the governance of the local government councils, and by extension, the state itself.
The Commissioner emphasized that the withholding of the March 2025 allocation has already caused hardship and that further seizures would exacerbate the situation.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the case.
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The legal tussle stems from a call by the APC in February for the Federal Government to withhold allocations to Osun’s local government councils.
The APC alleged that Governor Ademola Adeleke’s administration had illegally constituted council heads by conducting a “purported” local government election on February 22, 2025, despite a valid and subsisting Court of Appeal judgment.
APC spokesman Felix Morka stated that they expected the Federal Government to make federal allocations available only to democratically elected and judicially certified local government officials in Osun State.
However, the Osun State Government and the PDP countered the APC’s argument, pointing to a case the APC lost at the Federal High Court, the appeal of which was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on January 13, 2025, due to lack of diligent prosecution.
The Court of Appeal recently heard an application by the APC to relist an appeal against a Federal High Court judgment that sacked its chairmen and councilors on November 30, 2022.
A ruling on this application and a preliminary objection filed by the respondents (Action Peoples Party and OSSIEC) has been adjourned.
Meanwhile, the state chapter of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) has appealed to the Federal Government not to withhold allocations to the state’s local governments over the controversy surrounding the council elections.
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